There was darkness.
There was a thud against the wood.
Another.
And another.
She dropped to the dirt floor and put her head in her lap, her arms crossing over the back of her neck.
A sniffling at the tiny gap between doors and drive, a snorting and a pacing that circled the garage while she rocked herself on her haunches and crooned. Spittle slid from the corners of her mouth. She licked. Licked again.
And the pacing became a frenzied race, a frustrated charge to find an opening where none existed.
And when she realized she was safe as long as the bar across the doors held, Natalie began to laugh.
* * *
Chapter 10
Darkness was absolute. Like suspension in black water. Sitting was floating, nothing to give her a sense of perspective, a grip on that which was real. She had stood, briefly, but not being able to see had made her dizzy and she quickly crouched to the floor again.
When sensation at last returned and her hysteria had spent itself against the garage’s coarse, unpainted walls, her arms and legs danced in a violent trembling she was powerless to control. She rode it like an unbroken horse, hugging herself until first her legs, then her arms calmed; and the cold began a sifting through her skin, up through her buttocks to her spine, penetrating her sleeves and collar. A nauseating mixture of oil, gasoline and damp earth, dirty rags and dead grass made her stomach lurch, and she bent over, retching dryly while her throat protested and tears scoured her cheeks.
She sat. Thoughtless. Refusing the speculation that would batter down the conscious barrier she’d erected against her terror.
She raised an arm, turned her wrist, but the watch’s radium dial was blank.
At last cramps forced her to straighten her legs, and she massaged her thighs, reached down to rub hard at her ankles. The burning of her palms against the rough texture of her stockings was vaguely pleasing and she worked harder, kneading her flesh until she could remove her hands and still feel radiating warmth. To her arms next, scrubbing, gasping once when a nail jabbed into her bicep.
And the sound of her gasp made her freeze.
But the garage was silent. The sniffling was gone, the thunderously persistent race around the small building apparently ended. Faintly, then, the drift of a whining truck. She angled her head, trying to follow the anchor as long as she could; and when it was gone, she nodded and prepared to consider her alternatives.
It was obvious that whatever had been sent to her was not immaterial enough to pass through the concrete; it had its limitations. So long, then, as she remained inside, she would be safe until Marc returned home. But until that time, she would have to do something to keep from freezing to death.
Carefully, she rose to her feet. One hand stretched out before her, slowly scything the air while she rotated on her heels. A complete circle had no interruptions. A sideways step to the right, and she began again. Another step, and her fingers met cold metal. She sobbed aloud and threw herself against the Olds, draping herself over the hood and caressing its smooth curves. She kissed it once, laughing, and found her way to the door, opened it and clambered in. The seat was cold but she didn’t mind; she twisted over the headrest and fumbled until she found a blanket folded neatly in the corner. A moment later it was settled around her shoulders, and she inched out from under the steering wheel to the passenger side, thumbed open the glove compartment and allowed herself a gasp of pleasure when her fingers curled around the flashlight Marc had left there.
The light was dim, but enough to make her turn away until her eyes adjusted. It was a weapon against the night, and she directed it into all the shadowed corners, nodding at every twinge of recognition until her cheeks ached from her smiling. A check of the car’s interior unearthed no traps, only the stains and smudges and tears and dents of too many memories to sort out in a lifetime.
Then she slapped herself on the forehead. “You idiot!”
She leaned over and fumbled under the dashboard, gnawing her lips until she felt the familiar rectangle of a magnetic key case. She cursed when it eluded her grip and fell to the floor, and the flashlight punched white holes until she recovered it, freed the key and inserted it into the ignition.
She hesitated. News stories about people trapped in their garages with the motor running, asphyxiated by carbon monoxide. She tried to picture the walls, the doors, any place where there might be a crack to permit the invisible poison to escape; and she sat behind the wheel in frozen indecision while tears of frustration gathered again.
She pounded the wheel with impotent fists, and then blew on her hands to keep them warm. Finally, with numb fingers, she turned the key.
It coughed twice before catching, and she drummed her nails on the seat beside her, counting the seconds by one thousand and one until, flicking on the fan, a gust of warm air exploded into the car and made her applaud.
She held her hands under it, shoved her feet under it and rubbed them together, sighing at the pricking the cold left as it retreated. Then she rolled down the two front windows; she knew it would partially defeat her purpose, .but caution dictated she suffer an ounce of discomfort in payment for a guarantee of the future.
This, she thought as she leaned her head back, must be what it’s like to be rich.
And as she was drifting into a light-headed doze, she heard someone shouting. It was probably Marc, and he was probably wondering what she was doing sitting in the car in the middle of the night in this garage. She would have to get up. She would have to open the door and step out onto the dirt floor. No. The dirt was cold. She didn’t want to be cold again. She would wait until Marc came to help her. But he couldn’t, of course. The doors were bolted. She would have to get up. She would have to open the door and step on the floor and walk across the dirt to unbolt the doors. But Marc was clever, and he could figure out a way to get inside without having to use a door. There was no window, but she was too tired to move. Her legs were so comfortable ... and the seat was warm ... and the blanket was just beginning to feel cozy and soft ... and Marc would have to wait until ...
There was a pounding. The shouting was louder. Disturbing her sleep. Angry now. Marc was really very nice, but very inconsiderate.
The pounding increased, the bar rattled loudly. She could hear her name and it sounded quite pleasant. Natalie. A nice name. Natalie. Nice. But not the way Marc was yelling it. What will the neighbors think, for God’s sake?
She roused herself and slid out of the car, falling against the hood and dropping to her knees. There was a roaring in her head apart from the engine’s grumbling. She clutched at her temples, but the roaring refused to be banished. Using the car for balance, she pulled herself up and when she reached the end of the fender staggered into darkness until she fell up against the doors.
Move the bar, she told herself. And she sagged against it, asking just a little nap to regain her strength.
Something struck the outside, and she jumped back, cursing inaudibly. She threw up the bar and the door jerked away from her. There was light, a white light off to her right, and in front of her a man grabbing her arm and pulling her outside.
“It’s cold,” she said, tripping over a trailing corner of the blanket. “It’s cold.”
“You know,” Marc groused, “this is getting to be a pain in the neck. I mean, every time I get to spend the night in this place, it’s because you’ve gone and done something to scare the hell out of me. One of these days, lady, you’re going to drive me to buy one of those blow-up dolls to cuddle with.”
Natalie listened to his complaints, felt the sheet beneath her and wondered how he managed to get her undressed without taking one or two small pinching liberties here and there. The idea made her grin. She had told him everything, and the flush that darkened his forehead had intensified to an angry red. He made her drink a warm brandy, then followed with dark steaming tea. He rubbed her arms and legs, and bundled a fresh blanket around her
until she looked down and thought she saw a mummy lying in her bed.
A single lamp glowed in the bedroom’s corner. Quietly. A child’s nightlight, while he sat on the edge of the mattress and held tightly to one hand, toying absently with each of her fingers in turn.
“Well,” he said finally, reluctantly, “I hate to say this, old kid, but I think the battle’s been joined.”
She closed her eyes in agreement. “Who?” she asked in a small voice.
“It’s obvious now, isn’t it? I mean, especially after today? You don’t think Toal invited us to his soiree just because he likes my reporting, do you? He’s head of the Council, he makes all the decisions. It’s Ambrose Toal, Nat. Toal, his daughter, Adriana and all the rest of them. They have something they’re using to — I don’t know what the right word would be — produce, I guess, this thing that comes after you at night. You, and the others who weren’t so lucky.”
Toal, she thought; I have an invitation to my death.
“But why do I get away?”
“A warning the first few times, I think, or however many times it happened, or was close to happening. Tonight, though,” and he reached to the nightstand and picked something up, dropped it into her lap. She gaped, but her hands would not move. It was Ben’s ring. “You had it in a pocket of what was left of your dress.”
“I went to the den this morning,” she said quietly, as Marc retrieved the ring and returned it to the nightstand. “I was going to throw the shoe box away. I guess I just dropped the ring into my pocket. Marc ...” She looked up, but he was staring at the wall, at something he did not like.
“Nat, I want you to pack up and get out.”
It was said. And she hated him for saying it, even though it was the natural thing to do. She hated him because she almost agreed, despite her earlier convictions to stay and fight.
“Drink your tea,” he muttered.
“If I keep this up, I’ll be spending the whole night in the john.”
He struggled against a smile, and lost.
“And I’m not leaving,” she said, groping for his other hand. “If they’re all that anxious to have me ... dead ... why will moving away solve anything? If I don’t die here, I’ll die in another town. And ... they do want me dead.” It was strange how calmly and rationally the words came out. They do want me dead. “Not you, though. Not yet. That’s why they only, somehow, hide Oxrun from you.”
“Maybe before,” he said. “But not now, I think. I have a feeling I’m on their list.”
“Don’t!” She squeezed his hands until he winced and pulled them gently from her. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs and get something to eat, do you mind? I don’t know if I can take all this in as fast as you seem able to.”
There was only a moment’s vacillation before she threw aside the blanket and reached for the robe he held out to her. Embarrassment held her hand a second longer than was necessary, and when she saw him grin, she shook her head. “Is that all you can think of?”
“What? That you could stand to lose a pound or two?”
He exaggerated an examination of her figure while she slipped her arms into the sleeves, then ducked when she spun with a slap aimed at his head.
“Ye gods!” he yelled as she chased him into the hall and down the stairs. “How I manage to control myself is beyond me. It must be because I don’t like taking advantage of dumbbells.”
At the foot of the stairs he grabbed the post, spun, slipped, and fell heavily against the wall. He sat, legs poked out in front of him, and Natalie straddled them, hands on her hips.
“What time is it?”
He checked his watch. “Nine-thirty.”
“Brother, it feels like two in the morning. What do you want to eat?”
“In the kitchen, preferably,” he said.
“Don’t get smart, reporter,” and she held out a hand to pull him up. “Just march.”
They had soup and grilled cheese, afterward carrying their coffee into the living room. Natalie studiously avoided the sofa, preferring to have the porch windows at her back rather than having to search the shadows for signs of whirling sparks. Then, while Marc tossed his jacket onto the floor and kicked off his shoes, she ran back upstairs to the bedroom and fetched the ring. When she returned, he was sprawled, throw pillows lifting his head, his cup on the rug by his trailing hand.
She held up the ring, tossed it to him. “All right,” she said, “the link. I just wish I knew what ... what powers it had, or if it’s only a symbol of whatever it is they’re doing.”
“Well, it’s obviously more than a symbol, isn’t it.” He closed his eyes, his brow lined until he nodded and looked at her again. “Good. Fine. You saw it on Sam and on Bains. Have you seen anyone else with it that you haven’t mentioned?”
“No,” she said. “Just those two. But Mrs. Bradford told me that Artemus Hall was wearing one, too. And from the way she told me, I wouldn’t be surprised if her husband has one. There’s no question that Toal has something like it. Maybe the first one, if there was a first one.”
“Yeah,” Marc said, a mirthless grin on his face. Natalie did not like the look and glanced away, saw darkness in the corners of the room and held her breath until she was sure they were only shadows from the lamp. Take hold, kid, she told herself; then, take hold or you’ll be screaming your lungs out.
“How many of them are there?” she wondered aloud, more to herself than to Marc.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s like a membership card, though. And obviously something more.” He held the ring in his palm and rubbed at it vigorously with a thumb. “Oh well, no genie,” he said. “And, as far as I can see, no cabalistic writings on the inside.” He poked at it with a nail. “It doesn’t open, either. The Borgias would be disappointed.”
“All right, Marc, but — ”
He sat up suddenly and waved off her exclamation of surprise. “But me no buts, as the man said. Whatever it is, besides being a pretty ugly ring, we already know it’s the thing that’s been protecting you all this time, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Come on, Nat, use your head! Whenever that beastie has tried to get you, you’ve been near enough to the house to cut down on its strength. For God’s sake, if it’s powerful, real enough to tear a man apart, then it sure could have come through those glass doors upstairs that first night.”
“But tonight — ”
“I already told you, Nat. Come on, you’re losing your grip and that isn’t going to do either of us any good. Tonight you had it on you, and it’s the only thing that kept it from ... from doing you in. Whoever sent it must have been awfully mad to make it get as close as it did. You weren’t near the house when the library thing happened, but that was, as I said, just a warning.”
“Warning,” she said softly, thinking of Miriam.
“Right. Whoever directs it can’t see through its eyes. He, or she, just says I know where that woman is, so go there and get her. Mystery number one therefore solved — the ring is what they’re after.”
“Why didn’t they just break in when I was out?”
“Because they didn’t know you had it. Not until you started with Mrs. Bradford. That tipped them. Now they know.”
“Then,” she said, wondering why she felt so coldly calm, “mystery number two — why do they want it so badly?”
The telephone rang, cutting off his answer. She rose, but stayed by the chair when Marc lifted a hand. “It’s them,” he said, sudden confidence in his voice. “Checking to see if you’re dead.”
The word was as obscene as any she’d ever heard.
“But what if it’s Sam?”
“What of it? He has a ring, doesn’t he?”
“But you said the police — ”
“What I said and what I now know are two different things, love. Answer it, and give him a heart attack.”
The corridor extended, and she felt as though she were mired in a tunnel at the
end of which a train waited to run her down. In the kitchen she could only stare at the phone on the wall.
“They won’t wait forever, love,” Marc whispered in her ear. He reached over her shoulder and handed her the receiver.
“Nattie? Nattie, is that you?” She stammered something, hearing only Elaine’s nasal twang.
“Nattie, Sam’s out at cards again and I thought you and me could have a talk or something. To pass the time, you know?”
“I’m sorry, Elaine. I have work. It’s important.”
“Oh, I understand. I just worry about you, you know that.”
“Yes,” she said, her mouth dry and tasting of ashes. “Yes, I know.”
“You’ve heard the latest, I imagine?”
Natalie tipped the receiver so Marc could hear, leaning on her shoulder. She mouthed a name, and he nodded.
“Yes, I did.”
“You did?” Elaine sounded incredulous, and Natalie couldn’t help a dry grin.
“News like that travels fast, Elaine.”
“Oh. Yes, well, I guess it does. Helene was such a good woman, too. Heart attack, is that what you heard?”
“It was.” Then, suddenly, she said, “Elaine, will I see you tomorrow night?”
“Well, of course, you — ”
“Good! What will you be going as?”
A silence, and Marc patted her head, kissed her lightly on the shoulder.
“Going as? Going as what? To a shower?”
“Oh,” Natalie said, willing to play the role. “I’m sorry, Elaine, I thought we were talking about the same thing. It doesn’t matter, though. As long as you get out of the house once in a while, right?”
The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (Necon Classic Horror) Page 15
